Where Are the ‘Girls That Do Drugs’?

On the steps up to Third Avenue from the bowels of the L train, I spot two girls in all-black ensembles, one in platform boots and a mesh shirt and the other in a micro-mini skirt and white sneakers, and I immediately assume the three of us are here for the same thing: the Dare performing at Webster Hall. I’m suddenly self-conscious, wondering whether my ballet flats will translate as ironic or serve Upper East Side trust-fund baby, not that the latter would be out of place. When I turn the corner, nearly everybody is in similar outfits to the two girls I was flanking. It reeks of cigarettes, and digital cameras dangle from the wrists of at least a third of the people loitering up and down 11th Street.

The phrase indie-sleaze, referencing the messy, hedonistic indie subculture that defined the late aughts and mid-2010s, has been inescapable in the past couple of years, along with the exposed undergarments, messy dark makeup, unbrushed hair, and cigs-as-accessories that come with it. And the Dare, a New York–based DJ, producer, and musician whose real name is Harrison Patrick Smith, has been crowned the dauphin of this grimy rebirth on account of his grunge-adjacent, mildly ironic aesthetic, synth-pop sound and wry lyrics, as well as his proximity to his musical collaborator turned friend Charli XCX. Two years after his single “Girls” came out (“I like the girls that do drugs”), it’s still dominating TikTok and has become an anthem of sorts for the youth who are romanticizing, and almost willing into existence, an indie-sleaze revival. Tonight, I came to see the show but mostly to see the clothes and the crowd: a focus group of people too young to partake the first time around but who watched with eager eyes from the virtual sidelines of Tumblr and are now eagerly dressed in what their older cousins wore to Union Pool. Are they as sleazy as their predecessors, or is this concert simply the backdrop for an AlexaChungCon?

Inside the venue, the main floor is crawling with young adults, seemingly all in their 20s (though tickets were available to 16-year-olds and up) who look as if they’ve crawled straight out of the Cobrasnake’s 2009 archive. Three tall girls spanning ages 21 to 25 with avant-garde haircuts, tight-lined eyeliner and low-waisted bottoms chat among themselves, taking turns glancing around the room cooly and apathetically.

“I’m like, super-here for the revival, but I think it’s really annoying. Like, I was thinking people were gonna be dressed better here,” one member of the trio, a brunette in a miniskirt and fishnet stockings, tells me when I ask if they think an indie-sleaze revival is truly nigh.

“I feel like OG indie-sleaze is kind of ugly. It’s kind of gross. It’s kind of disgusting,” one of her friends adds. She has a blunt bob, and her makeup is mildly glittery and smoldered all together.

The three start listing the ways they see the resurgence in their day-to-day:

“I lay in bed and rot every single day, and that’s it.

“It’s waking up in last night’s mascara.”

“I wake up smelling last night’s dinner right next to me on my bedside table.”

“I feel like I’m always going out and I have, like, last night’s stamp on my hand.”

“I’ve gone to my bathroom at work and been scrubbing off my stamp from last night and I’m, like, taking off my little wristbands.”

“I don’t know, though!” the third friend, a redhead in a sheer top and cheetah-print hot pants, interjects. “Let them have it!”

“Yeah, I’m just a hater,” the first girl replies. Before I leave them, she tells me I remind her a little of Hannah Horvath since I’m a writer who’s out in the world conducting interviews. She catches herself and adds “but much cooler!” I walk away licking my wounds.

The concert hall is nearly pitch-black, yet several people are wearing sunglasses, perhaps in tribute to the Dare’s signature accessory. A handful of girls wear skinny ties and graphic tees, including one with a raggedy “D.A.R.E” logo (as in, to resist drugs). Seeing ironic dressing come back into fashion less than a decade after it fell out feels like running into a toxic friend you’ve distanced yourself from and aren’t quite ready to make amends with. Studded belts and modern mullets abound, a nod to the never-ending paradoxical fashion moment we all seem to be in. One man with neatly cut hair is shelling out wads of cash to pay for a drink at the bar. He’s in khaki slacks and a button-up and looks like he just got off work at Goldman Sachs. I can’t help but respect him more than anyone else here — a true accidental contrarian in a crowd of conformists. The smell of weed and men in vintage T-shirts with arms covered in patchwork tattoos (the guy next to me has a motorcycle and an unrelated milk carton etched on his bicep) blanket the ground level. The VIP section in the flanks of the upper mezzanine is relatively empty. It seems the Dare is a true man of the people.

During the opening DJ set by Taylor Skye of the group Jockstrap, someone in front of me sways in an oversize leather jacket; she has a cherry-red Lady Dior bag with a straw wrapper crumpled into its unzipped top and a pair of AirPod Maxes dangling off the straps — that’s true hedonism. The couple next to her, both clad in an unfathomable amount of chunky silver jewelry, start making out. I catch a glimpse of their slobbery tongues glistening in the flashing lights and am both repulsed and in awe. It’s what I came here to see, I guess: the relics of a mildly horny past rearing their head.

A girl next to me in a white button-up shirt and low-waisted jeans looks mildly bored. I ask what she thinks of all the chatter around the revival and the Dare’s role in it all.

“He’s like 3OH!3, and he’s really hitting on the indie-sleaze thing. Obviously, we’re having a moment that is reactionary. He’s bringing it back,” she says, noting she was too young to take part in its first wave. “It’s kind of a touch exciting to feel like you’re in it, but I definitely think it’s not genuine in a way.” Several people here seem to think all of this — the music, the fashion, the attitude — feels contrived, yet many of them longed to take part in the subculture’s initial iteration.

The lights dim and the crowd erupts into a roar. The Dare dances like a coordinated version of those tall inflatables that beckon customers into a car dealership, and the audience mirrors his movements, throwing their hands around and jumping. It’s clear he has them eating out of the palms of his slender hands. They’re all chanting his lyrics, like “sex” (the main lyric in his song “Sex,” if you can believe it), back to him and screeching when he picks up a cymbal and bangs it with a drumstick. It’s a moment of worship, a post-punk ritual of sorts. The stage is their altar and the Dare their idol.

Whether the indie-sleaze revival is authentic or an attempt to cosplay carelessness (the ads onscreen near the stage urge attendees to register to vote), it’s clear that it doesn’t really matter. They may be borrowing the blueprint, but they sure seem to be enjoying it. Throughout the concert, very few phones are out, apart from fulfilling their God-given purpose of taking occasional group selfies, and rarely are they taking videos of songs. Even in the lag between sets, only some people whip out their phones and turn to them as a pacifier for their lack of stimulation. Instead, they [gasp] talk to one another; some of them even … laugh? It’s a weird time to be in the city, walking around in a moment of hypersurveillance and knowing that both TikTokers and the everyday Joe are eager to document or expose you for clout. It’s not very sleazy to swap spit with a stranger at a bar all the while looking over your shoulder, worried someone’s going to narc with visual evidence to Instagram or, worse, your mom. At least for the evening, the panopticon is sidelined, and what looks to be true revelry is happening here in the moment. Everyone came tonight to capture some lost sense of hedonism, but actually it’s pretty wholesome.

After the show, I make my way through puffs of vape smoke to the sidewalk outside the venue, where the attendees have filtered out and are taking part in the ceremonial post-event cig-and-loiter session. The three statuesque girls I spoke with before the show are chatting. All of their makeup is slightly more smeared than when I saw them before but in a chic way, and they appear to be in high spirits. Their consensus: “It was really cool.” It seems all of them, the self-identified hater included, felt the crowd was more authentic and into the music and art of it all than they’d anticipated. The most reticent of the three spots Smith leaving the venue.

“Should I try it?” she asks her friends. They shrug. “I’m gonna try it,” she decides before sauntering away to try to chat with the star of the moment. Shooting your shot with a niche scene musician? Maybe we really are back.

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